Course Supplement

 

Religion Department

Spring 2010 Course Supplement

 

 

Course Times

TIMES	MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY
9:00-9:50	105 T Swan Tuite 236 Dobbins 251 Weiss		105 T Swan Tuite 236 Dobbins 251 Weiss		105 T Swan Tuite 236 Dobbins 251 Weiss
9:35-10:50		234 McMillin 282 Miller		234 McMillin 282 Miller
10:00-10:50	218 Barnes 275 Mahallati		218 Barnes 275 Mahallati		218 Barnes 275 Mahallati
11:00-11:50	208 Nongbri 226 D Kamitsuka		208 Nongbri 226 D Kamitsuka		208 Nongbri 226 D Kamitsuka
11:00-12:15		210 Nongbri 256 Weiss		210 Nongbri 256 Weiss
1:30-2:20	272 Mahallati		272 Mahallati		272 Mahallati
1:30-2:45		108 M Kamitsuka 233 Richman		108 M Kamitsuka 233 Richman
2:30-4:20	300 D Kamitsuka		400 Barnes D Kamitsuka J SwanTuite Nongbri
3:00-4:30		243 J Swan Tuite		243 J Swan Tuite
6:30-8:30		387 Miller	365 M Kamitsuka
7:00-9:00	341 J Swan Tuite	317 Barnes

 

 

 

100-level Courses:

 

These lecture courses have no prerequisite, cover at least three religious traditions,

and provide an introduction to some theories and methods in the study of religion.

 

 

RELG 105 – Introduction to Religion: Bodily Disciplines and Transcendence            

MWF 9-9:50 am

Credits: 3 Hours     Attribute: 3 HU, CD

This course explores the many and various ways in which religious traditions engage bodies in the service of personal transcendence. Primary attention is given to Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism, though practices from other traditions are also examined. Readings include primary and secondary source material as well as critical discussions of the body and bodily practices in the contemporary study of religion and other fields. Topics considered include: ascetic, devotional, meditative and healing practices.

Enrollment Limit: 35

Instructor: T. Swan Tuite

RELG 108 - Introduction to Religion: Women and the Western Traditions         
TR 1:30-2:45 pm

This course may also count for the major in GSFS

(Consult the program or department major requirements)

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU, CD

An introduction to Judaism, Christianity and Islam that focuses on women’s experiences and gender roles. This course will examine representations of women in sacred texts; primary sources by and about women from various historical periods, and contemporary feminist voices within each religious tradition. Topics to be investigated include: rabbinic teachings on biblical women, the role of women in early Christian heretical movements, discourses of the veil in Islam.

Enrollment Limit: 35

Instructor: M. Kamitsuka

 

 

200-Level Courses:

 

These lecture courses have no prerequisite and are typically focused within a subfield in religious studies.

 

RELG 208 - New Testament and Christian Origins                                                        

MWF 11-11:50 am    

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU                                           

This course introduces the academic study of the New Testament in its ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts by exploring how the diverse documents of the New Testament were transformed from Jewish sectarian literature into Christian scriptures. Thematic emphases include: the diversity of early Christian writings and social groups, the process of canon formation, and the rise of institutional Christianity.  The primary sources for this course will be the writings of the New Testament and other non-canonical early Christian literature (in English translation), including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas.  We will also read other ancient documents as well as some modern critical scholarship on the New Testament and ancient Christianity.  No previous knowledge of the New Testament is assumed.

Enrollment Limit: 35              

Instructor: B. Nongbri

This course is cross-listed with JWST 208.

 

 

RELG 210 - Ancient Mystery Cults                                                                       

TR 11-12:15 pm

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU                                           

This course introduces the literary and archaeological remains of ancient Greek and Roman mystery cults, proceeding by examining cults dedicated to several deities (Isis, Mithras, Dionysus, and others) exploring questions such as: How does our vocabulary (terms like “mystery,” “religion,” and “cult”) affect our study of these phenomena? How is archaeological evidence to be related to the textual evidence? How useful is the idea of “personal religious experience” when studying ancient cults?  How does ancient Jewish and Christian evidence relate to these cults?  We will also address the related phenomena of ancient magic and gnosticism.  The readings for the class will include of ancient texts (in English translation), such as Euripides Bacchae and The Golden Ass by Apuleius, and modern discussions of the textual and archaeological remains of these ancient cults.  No previous knowledge of the topic is assumed.

Enrollment Limit: 35  

Instructor:  B. Nongbri

 

 

RELG 218 – Christianity in the Late Medieval World 1100-1600                                 

MWF 10-10:50 am

Credits: 3 hours      Attribute: 3HU

This course offers an interpretive study of Christian traditions from 1100 to 1600, focusing on the development of Christianity as expressed through reform movements. These (often radical) movements, from the twelfth-century renaissance to the Protestant and Catholic reformations of the sixteenth century, caused political and social upheaval in trying to retrieve an idealized past. Issues for consideration include the rise of clerical authority and abuse, the role of women, free will, grace, embodiment, asceticism, mysticism, and heresy. The background will be the changing landscape of medieval Europe through urbanization, crusades, plagues, and economic developments. Attention will also be given to medieval technologies of writing, including manuscriptu copying and illumination, the role of the printing press, and art as writing, in the reformations. The course will depend upon and foster skills of close, contextualized textual analysis of primary sources in translation.

Enrollment Limit: 35

Instructor: C. Barnes

 

 

RELG 226 - Modern Religious Thought in the West: Mid-19th Century to the Present        

MWF 11-11:50 am

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU

This course analyzes our assumptions and judgments about religion in light of the clash of religious and secular frameworks. Topics to be examined include religious responses to modern scientific and historical consciousness, secular critical analyses of religion, debates on the human condition, efforts to address cultural and religious issues arising from the devastation of the two world wars, and the challenge of religious pluralism. Thinkers studied include Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Buber, Tillich, Niebuhr and contemporary thinkers.

Enrollment Limit: 35

Instructor: D. Kamitsuka

 

 

RELG 233 - Religion in Modern India                                                                                   

TR 1:30-2:45 pm

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU, CD, WR

A study of the effect of colonial rule, decolonization, and social change on Indian religious traditions. We examine theological tracts and debates, mythological and ritual texts, oral traditions, and contemporary novels about religion. Topics include: social mobility and orthodoxy, religious roots of the Gandhian movement for independence, changing rituals within the joint family, religion in the present-day political sphere, and Hinduism overseas.

Enrollment Limit: 40

Instructor: P. Richman

 

 

RELG 234 - Buddhist Thought and Practice in India and Tibet                          

TR 9:35-10:50 am

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU, CD, WR

This course explores the origins and development of Buddhism in north India 2500 years ago and surveys its expansion across India and beyond the subcontinent into Tibet. The course will consider important Buddhist concepts and examine primary texts from several schools in South Asia and Tibet. We will look at Tibetan Buddhist history and practice in some depth, as well as contemporary socially-engaged Buddhist movements in India.

Enrollment Limit: 35

Instructor: L. McMillin

Consent Required

 

 

RELG 236 - Japanese Thought and Religion                                                                    

MWF 9-9:50 am

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU, CD

A historical survey of the development of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan and the roles they have played in Japanese culture and society. Among the topics to be discussed are the ancient myths of Shinto, the transmission of Buddhism to Japan, the emergence of native forms of Buddhism (i.e., Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren), and the use of Shinto as a nationalistic ideology.

Enrollment Limit: 60

Instructor: J. Dobbins

Cross List Information This course is cross-listed with EAST 152

 

 

RELG 243 - Religion in America: The Ethics of Ordinary Life                          

TR 3-4:30 pm

Credits: 3 Hours     Attribute: 3 HU

Employing recent developments in theories of religion, this course examines the ethical practices of ordinary life in lived religious communities in America with special emphasis on the ethics of new religious movements including The People’s Temple, Heaven’s Gate, Alcoholics Anonymous, Scientology, and others. The course briefly surveys recent uses of practice theory (e.g., Pierre Bourdieu, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Michel Foucault) in religious ethics for the study of social formations before considering topics ranging from consumption and self-control, making and sustaining boundaries, healing practices, and making and breaking commitments. Our sources will include manuals for religious life, conversion narratives, sermons, and communal histories.

Enrollment Limit: 35

Instructor: J. Swan Tuite

 

 

RELG 251 - Modern Jewish Thought                                                                                 

MWF 9-9:50 am

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU, CD, WR

Beginning with Spinoza in the 17th century, this course will examine intellectual and philosophical responses to the changing situation of Judaism in modernity.  We will read thinkers—such as Mendelssohn, Cohen, Buber, Rosenzweig, Heschel, Kaplan, Plaskow, and Eisen—who addressed such questions as: How should Jews understand received tradition in the modern age?  How should Jews relate to their non-Jewish neighbors?  What is the role of ethics in Judaism?

Along the way, we will also study a few of the most prominent figures in modern Western thought (such as Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche), in order to get a better sense of the broader philosophical context to which these Jewish thinkers were responding.   In addition, we will consider some more recent works that apply other types of analyses—including ethnographic, sociological, and feminist—to see how their method and arguments compare to the approach of the previous thinkers.  No prerequisites.

Enrollment Limit:  35

Instructor: D Weiss

This course is cross-listed with JWST 151

 

 

RELG 256 – Introduction to Rabbinic Literature                                                 

TR 11-12:15 pm

Credits:  3 hrs      Attribute: 3HU, CD, WR

An introduction to the basic literary genres of classical rabbinic Judaism, including Midrash, Mishnah, and Talmud.  Full of legal disputes, humor, and creative biblical interpretations, these texts have shaped Jewish imagination and modes of reasoning through the centuries.   Our chief focus will be close readings of primary texts (in English translation), in order to develop a sense of how these texts ‘work.’   (For students with some knowledge of Hebrew, optional extra sessions may be offered to examine the texts in their original language.)

 

In addition to examining the relation of these texts to the Hebrew Bible, secondary readings will help us to draw out the ways in which these genres embody distinctive hermeneutic, argumentative, ethical, theological, and pedagogical features of rabbinic thought.  We will also devote attention to the ways in which these texts have been applied, appropriated and re-imagined in the context of contemporary Judaism.  No prerequisites.

Enrollment: 35

Instructor: D Weiss

This course is cross-listed with JWST 256

 

 

RELG 272 - Introduction to the Qur'an                                                                

MWF 1:30-2:20 pm

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU, CD

In the view of orthodox Muslims, God addresses the entire humanity through the Qur’an. This course is intended to familiarize students to the scriptural foundation of Muslim belief systems through historical, literary, and theological analysis of the text in English translation. This course will explore some of the major themes addressed in various Qur’anic chapters that helped form the social norms, beliefs, and daily practices of Muslim societies.

Topics in this course include: approaches to the idea of revelation and the history of the written text, its overall content and themes, the style of the Qur’an, the life of Muhammad as a source for interpreting the Qur’an, and Muhammad and the Qur’an as the foundation of law, the Qura’anic cosmic and moral order, eschatology and the Last Judgment, theology, hermeneutics, politics, and practices of piety such as recitation. The course will address aesthetics, the Qur’anic calligraphy and its role in the formation of Islamic art and architecture in the Muslim history. The course will also discuss both the modernist and the fundamentalist interpretations of the Qur'an in relation to social reform within the Muslim countries and the Muslim Diaspora.

Enrollment Limit: 35

Instructor: M. Mahallati

 

 

RELG 275 - Religion and Politics in the Modern Muslim World                                  

MWF 10-10:50 am

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU, CD

The vast geography of Islam extending from Indonesia to Morocco has been fertile and contentious meeting place of religion and politics, especially in the modern era. This course analyses the dynamic between religion and politics in the Muslim world focusing especially on the last fifty years. The Islamic revolution in Iran, the rise of militant fundamentalism, and the emergence of the Islamist democratic parties in Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey will be among the case-studies examined.

Other topics in this course include: roots and development of Islamic political thought, Muslim responses to nationalism, socialism and democracy, history of political interactions between Judaic, Christian and Muslim communities, relative roles of politics and religion in the formation and development of the Arab-Israeli conflicts and peace negotiations and the overall impact of this encounter on the Muslim-Western relations. The course will address resurgent political Islam and modernity, theories of clash of civilizations and their critiques, Muslim response to 9/11 and subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the prospect of political paradigm change in Muslim-Western relations in the Obama era. The course will also focus on influences of Muslim Diaspora on motherland politics.

Enrollment Limit: 35

Instructor: M. Mahallati

 

 

RELG 282 - Survey of American Christianity                                                                  

TR 9:35-10:50 am

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU

Introduction to major issues, figures and movements in American religious history and American Christianity. Attention will be given to persistent themes such as individualism, the search for community, religion and reform, religious conservatism and innovation, and the religious nature of American culture. Class, race, ethnicity and gender will also be addressed as we explore American religious experience in all its diversity. The goal is to better understand the place of religion in American society, and to evaluate its past impact and future role.

Enrollment Limit: 35

Instructor: A.G. Miller

 

 

300-Level Courses:

 

These advanced seminars are typically focused within a subfield of religious studies.

Consent of instructor is required for registration.

 

 

RELG 317 - Seminar: Augustine of Hippo                                                                        

T 7:00-9:00 pm

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU

Augustine of Hippo is one of the most influential and controversial figures in the history of Christianity. He wrote at length on a staggering variety of topics, including himself, which makes him a figure both fascinating to study and impossible to summarize. Above all else, Augustine was a dynamic thinker, constantly in intellectual motion. This seminar will focus on close reading of primary sources from various stages of Augustine’s career. Secondary sources will illuminate the contexts in which Augustine lived and wrote, highlighting his training as a rhetor, the social and intellectual milieu of Roman North Africa, and the crumbling authority of the Roman Empire. We will linger over major themes in Augustine’s writings and the polemical contexts through which these themes took form, especially the Donatist and Pelagian controversies. Topics for discussion will include sexuality and concupiscence, original sin, biblical hermeneutics, emerging lay forms of Christianity, ecclesiastical authority, sacraments, contemplation, and the relationship between religion and politics. Our diverse readings and discussions will prepare us as well for investigating the ever-contentious Augustinian legacy. Interest permitting, there will be a Latin reading group, probably focusing on examples of Augustine’s many letters and sermons.

Enrollment Limit: 15

Instructor: C. Barnes

Consent of the Instructor Required

 

 

RELG 341 - Seminar: Issues in Religious Ethics                                                             

M 7:00-9:00 pm

Credits: 3 hours   Attribute: 3HU, WR

Special Topics: Psychiatric Ethics

Ethical issues are generally under theorized within psychiatric spaces, and, when psychiatric phenomena are subjected to critical examination, the analysis is frequently uneven; i.e., there tends to be much more consideration of hard cases (involuntary commitments, mandating treatment for inmates, or the reality of mental illness) than ordinary dilemmas facing psychiatric practice (e.g., the responsibilities of administering drug substitution or alteration of patient values within therapeutic practice). As several commentators on the psychiatric/ethics intersection note, efforts to correct these imbalances will require significant attention the ordinary dimensions of psychiatric practice such as therapeutic techniques and goals. This course surveys recent efforts to consider these ordinary dimensions alongside the traditional 'hard cases'. It begins with a brief introduction to psychiatric ethics as problematic specialized sub-discipline within the broader field of medical and healthcare ethics. It asks whether and to what degree the problems raised by psychiatric practices are substantially different from other medical practices and, consequently, raise special ethical concerns not found in other branches of medical ethics. For example, what special vulnerabilities do psychiatric patients face and how might these vulnerabilities figure into our conception of adequate safeguards? The course then turns to discrete topics within the growing field of psychiatric ethics including privacy, therapeutic relationships, the ethics of belief formation, ethics of enhancement technologies, special issues related to informed consent and models for thinking about the social construction of mental illness.

Readings are drawn from theological and philosophical ethicists as well as contemporary theorists that likely include Carl Elliot, Ian Hacking, Paul Chodoroff, Tom Beauchamp, David Kelley, Linda Mercadente, Christopher Cook, Margaret Farley, Aaron Mackler, and others.

Enrollment Limit: 15

Instructor: J. Tuite

Consent of the Instructor Required

 

 

365. Seminar: Religion and the Body                                                                                           

W 6:30—8:30

This course may also count for the major in GSFS (consult the program or department major requirements)

Credits: 3HU     Attributes: CD, WR

This seminar investigates the role of religion in the representations and regulations of women’s and men’s bodies. We will use current theories about gender, sexuality, and religious experience and multiple methodologies (philosophical, theological, historical, exegetical, ethnographic) in order to analyze the impact of religion on bodily practices. Issues we will investigate include: how religious symbolism is shaped by and shapes basic bodily experiences, especially pain and trauma; how the early church “invented” sodomy and ignored female homoeroticism; how medieval mystics connected intense bodily mortification and spiritual ecstasy; how masculine God symbols create dilemmas for men’s concepts of body, gender, and desire; how the sacrality and ritual “pollution” of the bleeding body are negotiated in multiple religious traditions.

Enrollment: 15

Instructor: M. Kamitsuka

Consent of the Instructor Required

 

 

RELG 387 - Seminar: Religion and U.S. Social Welfare Policy and Social Work Practice: A Historical Perspective                                                                                                                               

T 6:30-8:30 pm

Credits: 3-4 hours     Attribute: 3-4HU, WR

This course will focus on the religious origin of social welfare institutions within the USA, including Protestant, Catholic and Jewish traditions (Jewish sects, African American congregations, and conservative Protestant movements, to name a few), which provided material, financial, and spiritual supports. Given the constitutional clause of the separation between church and state, religious institutions established voluntary institutions that provided social supports. This course will also have a service-learning component.

Enrollment Limit: 15

Instructor: A.G. Miller

Consent of the Instructor Required

 

 

 

 

RELG 300 & RELG 400:

 

Theses courses are for religion majors only.  They are designed to promote the development of skill relevant to independent research, writing projects, oral presentations, and graduate study.

 

RELG 300 - Approaches to the Academic Study of Religion                                                       

M 2:30-4:20 pm

Credits: 3 hours     Attribute: 3HU, WR

This course provides an opportunity for religion majors to reflect on knowledge acquired in their coursework and develop skills relevant to independent research, writing projects, oral presentations, and graduate study.  Students will develop a prospectus for their senior capstone project along with the relevant subfield literature review. Required for majors declaring in or after the academic year, 2008-09.

Instructor: D. Kamitsuka

Consent of the Instructor Required

 

 

 

RELG 400 - Senior Capstone Colloquium                                                                        

W 2:30-4:20 pm

Credits: 3 hours (for the 2 or 4 hours option, consult the Dept Chair)    Attribute: 2-4HU

This colloquium is a team-taught advanced course where students work on a substantive independent research project while also participating in a colloquium setting to discuss the research process and engage in peer review and interdisciplinary exchange with department faculty. Required for majors declaring in or after the academic year, 2008-09.

Instructor: C. Barnes, D. Kamitsuka, J. Swan Tuite, B. Nongbri

Consent of the Instructor Required

 

 

 

INFORMATION ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT

 

Religion

 

David G. Kamitsuka, Associate Professor; Department Chair

Corey Barnes, Assistant Professor

James C. Dobbins, Fairchild Professor of Religion

Margaret D. Kamitsuka, Associate Professor

Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, Presidential Scholar

Albert G. Miller, Davis F & L Lord Davis Professor of Religion

Brent Nongbri, Visiting Assistant Professor

Paula S. Richman, Danforth Professor of Religion

James Swan Tuite, Visiting Instructor in Religion

Teresa Swan Tuite, Visiting Assistant Professor in Religion

Daniel Weiss, Visiting Assistant Professor

 

Joyce K. Babyak, Associate Professor (on leave)

Cynthia R. Chapman, Assistant Professor (on leave)

Abraham P. Socher, Associate Professor (on leave)

 

 

The Religion major is designed to serve as a focus of a liberal arts education for the general student and as a pre-professional foundation for those pursuing the study of religion beyond the baccalaureate degree. Some courses in the Religion Department are cross-referenced or cross-listed with, or generally fulfill requirements of, other programs of study in the College—e.g., African American Studies; Comparative American Studies; East Asian Studies; Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies; Jewish Studies; and Law and Society. While offering a broad focus in the humanities and in the study of religion, the major also affords an opportunity for concentrated study in particular religious traditions and specific areas of religious thought and practice. Students who contemplate graduate study in religion or professional study in seminary or rabbinical school after graduation are advised to consult with the chair or other members of the department as early in their undergraduate careers as possible.

 

Approaches to the academic study of religion have developed in engagement with a host of historical factors.  Understanding Religious Studies as an academic discipline requires an appreciation of the intersections and divergences among a variety of approaches.  In our major, we focus on the following three influential general approaches:

 

    *            The tradition-based approach to the study of religion predates the “invention” of the Western academic study of religion in the 19th century, but continues to be vitally important for the academic study of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in our curriculum.  Religious tradition-based approaches provide the means for in-depth study of the synchronic and diachronic aspects of religions in global contexts.  This approach includes historical, textual, and ethnographic methods of investigation.

 

    *             The modern-culture-based approach to the study of religion emerged with the development of modern religious thought in the West and modern religious social ethics.  This approach initially focused on modern Western philosophical questions of metaphysical and moral truth and meaning but has expanded to include issues arising from other forms of critical theory such as gender theory and postcolonial theory.

 

    *              The geographical region-based approach analyzes religious forms of life in terms of the history and cultures of a region.  Oftentimes historical, anthropological, and archeological frameworks and methods are employed by this approach. This approach has been influential in the modern academic study of ancient Near Eastern religions (including biblical studies) and in the study of East Asian, South Asian, and African religions, and religions of the Americas—previously underrepresented in Religious Studies.

 

 

Courses offered in the department are grouped in the following categories:

 

First-Year Seminars and 100-level Courses.

First-year seminars and lecture courses at the 100 level are intended primarily for non-majors. First-year seminars are writing intensive and focus on the essential skills of reading, analysis, writing, and discussion.  The 100-level Introduction to Religion courses are intended to introduce students to at least three religious traditions.  In addition several colloquia for first- and second-year students are offered in varying years.

 

200-Level Courses.

The 200-level courses serve as “gateways” to our major in that they are designed to introduce students to one or more general approach (described above) and the disciplinary subfields in the academic study of religion.  In addition, 200-level courses are where the breadth and concentration for the major are acquired.  The particular focus of each 200-level course is indicated more fully in the course descriptions below.

 

300-Level Seminars.

Advanced 300-level seminars are primarily intended for Religion majors and minors who have completed at least one 200-level course in the applicable subfield.

 

RELG 300 – Approaches to the Academic Study of Religion.

The overarching learning objective of this course is to train students in the skills necessary for doing primary research in the academic study of religion, particularly in light of the three general approaches to the study of religion of the major.  This course will culminate in the development of a prospectus for the student’s Senior Capstone Project along with the relevant subfield literature review.

 

RELG 400 – Senior Capstone Colloquium.

The colloquium is a team-taught course for senior religion majors only, designed to facilitate independent research that deepens and synthesizes student learning in the major.

 

 

INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Major

 

Before declaring the major in Religion, students must complete the following forms, in consultation with an advisor (a continuing faculty member in the department): a Plan for the Major and a Majors Checklist (available on Blackboard) and the Declaration of Major form (available from the Office of the Registrar).  The Plan for the Major should describe the student’s intentions and goals for the major as well as a strategy for achieving those goals. The student and advisor should re-visit the Plan for the Major several times during the student’s work in the department and revise it as appropriate.

 

The Religion major consists of a minimum of 30 credit hours in the department. Under ordinary circumstances, no more than one first-year seminar or colloquium for first- and second-year students and one of the nine "Introduction to Religion" (RELG 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108 and 109) courses may be counted in the 30 hours required for the major.

 

Students majoring in Religion must complete the following:

 

1.  At least one course in each of the three general approaches to the academic study of religion.

 

The tradition-based approach:

    *       Judaism (250, 251, 253, 258)

    *       Islam (270, 272, 275, 273)

    *        Christianity (217, 218, 228)

    *        Hinduism (231)

 

The modern-culture-based approach:

    *        Modern Religious Thought in the West (225, 226, 227)

    *        Religious Social Ethics (243, 244, 245, 246)

    *        Gender & Religion (247, 261, 262)

 

The geographical region-based approach:

    *        Ancient Near East  (202, 205, 206, 208)

    *        East Asia (235, 236)

    *        South Asia (233)

    *        Modern North America (263, 282, 284)

 

2. Take one 200-level course in at least four of the subfields represented in our major.  (Courses identified under the general approaches requirement may also count toward this subfield requirement.)

 

    *        American Religious History  (282, 284, 285)

    *        East Asian Religions  (235, 236)

    *        Religious Social Ethics  (243, 244, 245, 247, 249)

    *        Gender and Religion  (261, 262, 263, 247)

    *        History of Christianity  (217, 218)

    *        Islam  (270, 272, 273, 274)

    *        Jewish and Christian Scriptures  (205, 207, 208)

    *        Judaism  (250, 251, 258)

    *        Modern Religious Thought in the West  (225, 226, 227)

    *        South Asian Religions  (231, 233, 234)

 

3. Take at least one additional 200-level course in one of the four subfields, thus forming a subfield concentration (along with a 300-level seminar).

 

4. Take at least one 300-level seminar.  Majors will normally take the seminar within their subfield concentration.

 

5.  Take Approaches to the Academic Study of Religion (RELG 300) no later than first semester of the senior year.  Students must have completed at least one 200-level course in two of the three general approaches to the study of religion as a prerequisite for RELG 300.

 

6.  Take the Senior Capstone Colloquium (RELG 400).  RELG 300 is a prerequisite for RELG 400.  The Senior Capstone Colloquium is a team-taught advanced course where students work on a substantive independent research project while also participating in a colloquium setting to discuss the research process and engage in peer-review and interdisciplinary exchange with department faculty.

 

7.  Students planning graduate or professional study in Religion are encouraged to take at least one year of foreign or classical language study at the college level.

 

Minor

The minor in Religion consists of 5 courses, totaling at least 15 hours.  One of these courses must be a 300-level seminar.

           

Minimum Grade

Students must earn a C– or higher in any Religion course they wish to count for the major or minor.

 

Transfer of Credit

Students wishing to transfer credit toward the Religion major are advised to provide the department with as much information about the transferred course as possible (including the syllabus, papers, and exams). The department will not count more than six hours of transfer credit toward the major and does not normally accept transferred courses to satisfy distribution requirements in the major. Students should seek preapproval from the Chair for coursework they intend to take elsewhere and transfer to Oberlin.

           

Honors

Students will be considered for honors based on their performance in the major, the quality of their senior capstone project, and an oral examination.  Please consult with the Chair of the department for further information about the program.

           

Winter Term

Faculty in the Religion Department sponsor a wide variety of Winter Term projects, particularly projects related to their areas of scholarly expertise. Students planning projects are invited to approach individual faculty members to discuss their ideas and plans.